I Cried To Dream Again
by Ellana-san
Summary: It's difficult to differentiate souldreams from regular dreams. Until you meet your soulmate, souldreams are evanescent. They slip through your fingers, leaving behind only an impression, an imprint of sort. Much like regular dreams, there is no really remembering them.


_This was first a prompt about soulmates sharing memories through dreams but I had an idea and then couldn't shake it and so this was born._

 _Also, this is for Ursula (100years-to-live) because… IT'S HER BIRTHDAY! So happy birthday! I gift you with soulmates, some angst, some pain, some steam and an impossible lengthy one shot! Enjoy my dear!_

 _This is very long and I chose to publish it as a one-shot rather than as a chaptered story not to break the flow but it requested a lot of work so if you read and like it, please consider leaving a review! It would make my day =)_

 _The title comes from Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and is a line from Caliban: "When I waked, I cried to dream again"._

* * *

 ** _I Cried To Dream Again_**

* * *

It's difficult to differentiate souldreams from regular dreams.

Until you meet your soulmate, souldreams are evanescent. They slip through your fingers, leaving behind only an impression, an imprint of sort. Much like regular dreams, there is no really remembering them.

* * *

Haymitch doesn't care much about soulmates and souldreams. Most people never meet theirs and souldreams remain something that sometimes happens at night, a ghostly presence in one's life. He and his soulmate are rarely ever asleep at the same time, he thinks, because from as early as he can remember the souldreams are an occasional thing.

On the rare times it happens, he keeps a fleeting impression of bright colors and an acute feeling of loneliness.

He doesn't know what they get from him and he isn't particularly interested to find out.

* * *

His world isn't made for dreaming – neither the soul nor the regular kind – when he isn't in school, he is scouring the woods for more food, trying to take care of his family like his father should have done.

* * *

He's fifteen when he gets caught and is tied up to the post on the Square.

He's fifteen when the whip lashes out and tears his skin hard enough that he cries out despite his best intentions of enduring the punishment like a man.

The Peacekeeper is lenient because he likes him and his sass, Haymitch knows that, he gets off _easy_. That's what the healer says to his mother anyway.

It doesn't feel like getting off easy.

He spends days lying on his stomach in the small bedroom he shares with his brother, unable to do anything but _dream_.

* * *

They come sometimes, the souldreams.

It's the first time he takes comfort in them. He doesn't truly remember them but he knows they're happy. _Colors_ is the word he uses to describe them to his brother whose own souldreams are barely starting to occur and are too confuse to be anything clear.

 _Colors_.

He doesn't know what it means really, can't say what the souldreams are about or what happens in them… He thinks he sees her once but dreams aren't trustworthy. He knows she's a girl. He wakes up once day with the echo of a joyful girlish laugh in his head. He doesn't know what she looks like but he knows she dreams in _colors_.

* * *

His own dreams are boring. Fear and dread and worry about the future, the mine he won't escape and the Reapings ahead. He wonders if she feels or sees any of that sometimes. He hopes not. If she dreams in colors, he dreams in grey and he doesn't want to taint her mind.

* * *

He heard tales that once you met your soulmate, the souldreams becomes something different, something _you share_. He doesn't know if he believes it and he doesn't know anyone with a soulmate he could ask.

* * *

Mabel isn't his soulmate but he loves her all the same. Enough to start including her in his careful planning of the future, enough to include her in his mad dash on the numerous times he fantasizes about fleeing Twelve for an undefined _elsewhere_ where they wouldn't be slaves.

* * *

And then he is reaped.

* * *

He hides it for everyone's sake but he is terrified. There is a second of pure unblinking terror when his name echoes in the silent Square, the last one to be called, a terror three times stronger than the one that gripped his guts when he was caught with his bag full of dead squirrels and nuts that only grow in the woods.

His name echoing in the Square equals to a death sentence.

He walks to that stage in a state of numbness and remembers himself only when his eyes meet his brother's. He winks at Hayden and forces a spree in his steps, forces himself to act as if it doesn't mean he will leave for an _elsewhere_ after all but one from which he will probably never come back.

* * *

He hates everything in the Capitol from the gawking crowd to the escorts and the stylists.

They force them in miner outfits and cake them with coal and send them out for everyone to laugh at them. He meet Maysilee's eyes on the cart and his jaw clenches in humiliation. She shrugs and shyly waves at the crowd. It is several minutes before he sees the wisdom of trying to charm people who could mean their survival and imitates her.

* * *

The food is the only good thing in the Capitol as far as he's concerned and the waste makes him almost seething with fury.

* * *

He doesn't talk to the other tributes from Twelve. Maysilee seems to always shadow him but Haymitch pretends he doesn't see. He isn't sure he wants an ally. He goes to Training, sticks to the survival stands for the first two days and then wanders to the knives and hand to hand combat instructors. He keeps a low profile, lets the Careers brag and the others either get cornered in fights or being provoked into revealing things. He keeps a low profile and he studies his opponents.

He learns.

It chills him to the bones to think he is learning their flaws so he can more easily kill them but the horror the thought inspires isn't strong enough to deter him.

* * *

He longs for the nights.

* * *

For the first time in his life, the souldreams come every day. He doesn't let himself linger about what it means, a part of him already made the time zone calculations, already figured out _where_ his soulmate must likely be given the times the souldreams used to occur in Twelve and their regularity now. He pretends he didn't understand because otherwise he would have had to feel guilty for enjoying them. Nothing in the Capitol can be good.

But the souldreams…

He _drowns_ in them. Every night he drowns in her colors and warmth and simple happiness and for a blissful couple of seconds when he opens his eyes in the morning he is calm and content.

The souldreams become his safe place, a welcome haven in the horror.

* * *

The night before the launch, he doesn't manage to go to sleep, not deeply enough to dream, and yet he tries _so hard,_ desperate for a last taste of that girl he never met. He thinks it's probably better that way but he would have liked to thank her, Capitol or not, because unbeknown to her, she made his _probable_ last days just a little bit easier.

* * *

He's determined to win.

He will try if it's the last thing he does. He has a family to go back to, a brother and a mother and a girl and he is too much of a survivor to lie down and let death reap him.

He sees it in some other tributes.

They're just _that bit_ too slow to run to or away from the Cornucopia, they stand there and waits for death without really seeking it out.

Or maybe they're dazzled by the beauty surrounding them.

* * *

Haymitch runs.

* * *

He runs and ducks and grabs what he needs from the Cornucopia, a bag and weapons, before fleeing the bloodbath. He heads to the woods out of reflex, a half-cooked plan of finding an exit in mind.

It must end somewhere.

It _must_.

* * *

It's frightening how beautiful everything is. The plants, the flowers, even the _dirt_ … It's dizzying and he doesn't think he will ever be able to trust anything that beautiful again.

* * *

He can't afford to sleep.

At best he falls into a light slumber.

There are carnivorous golden squirrels and deadly butterflies that seem to operate a lot like tracker jacker bees… There are gorgeous flowers that swell and try to eat you if you get too close.

Danger is everywhere.

* * *

In a way, the arena is so bright and beautiful it reminds him of the souldreams.

* * *

He keeps the mountain at his back and he walks.

When he stumbles on the Careers, he's almost amazed he made it that far and this long without meeting anyone. They're trained but he's fast. He kills two before they can disarm him. The last one is stronger and Haymitch ends up on his back, a blade already biting his throat.

Without Maysilee he would have been dead meat.

* * *

It's easier with an ally in some ways but worse in others.

* * *

They weren't friends before.

He knows her from school but she's from town and a year or two behind him. Right now, she's his best friend in the world. Everything is upped and quickened, constant rushes of adrenaline, and he finds himself trusting Maysilee like he never trusted anyone before, not even Mabel.

And he knows that for him to have any chance at winning, she will have to die.

At least he can afford sleep now.

He trusts her to keep watch and he can't go on much longer without proper rest.

The souldream creeps upon him slowly but surely. It's not as bright as usual and the remnants of ghostly happiness he usually feels when he wakes up aren't there. He wonders if he infected her dreams with his own anguish, if maybe that's why she isn't as colorful as usual.

* * *

He wins.

* * *

He's in such a bad shape they pump him with drugs all day long. It's no natural sleep. No souldreams occur.

By the time they pack him on a train back to Twelve, he's almost glad for it.

Since the arena the world is dimmed, _dull_. He relishes in it. He doesn't think he has it in him to face bright colorful dangerous things.

* * *

Of course, then he comes home to find three newly dug graves, a charred house and people who can't quite look at him in the eyes.

There are no danger of colors invading his life ever again.

* * *

He avoids sleeping at night, in part because he is scared of the dark and the ghosts lurking in this brand new empty house and in part to avoid the off chance of having a souldream. He sleeps in the morning or naps in the afternoon.

He refuses to see the rare friends who seek him out. He barricades himself in the Victors' Village and spends his days thinking.

* * *

Thinking doesn't agree with him anymore and he doesn't quite know how to be idle.

He doesn't know what to do with the free time, with the holes in his life and with the crushing loneliness.

* * *

The slope into alcoholism is a slow but steady one.

It starts with the drink Chaff pushes in his hand at his Victory Tour and tumbles down into a glass every time his brain refuses to shut down.

* * *

By the time the sixty-second Hunger Games roll around, he is somewhere at a bottle a day. It's not something he's proud of but it's something he advocates without shame. People like to see him as the joke of victors rather than the Quell victor and it suits him. Less attention.

The list of people he killed or failed to save is growing every year, two more names he can add to the army of ghosts haunting him. His sleep is plagued with nightmares. The souldreams, when they occur, are bubbles of light in an ocean of darkness. He hates them now. They're too soft, too innocent, too bright, too beautiful, and too soothing to his own battered soul.

He thinks about that poor girl sometimes, whose soul had been cursed with a crumpled monster for a mate and he thinks maybe he should add her to the list of people he destroyed.

* * *

The Sixty-Second Hunger Games' year is the year he meets Effie Trinket.

* * *

He hates her on the spot. She's too lively, too colorful, too cheerful and, truly, it should have clued him right in.

There's something familiar about her he can't quite pinpoint.

They start arguing thirty seconds after Undersee introduces them. He refuses to shake her hand just to spite her, she calls him out on his rudeness, he says she looks like a clown, she retorts his breath reeks of alcohol.

* * *

Off to a good start.

* * *

She's less easy than other escorts to intimidate into silence or to fluster into incomprehensible babbling.

He frightened some away and he slept with others but it's been a few years since an escort of his lasted more than a single season.

He tries everything with her: the sarcastic approach, the ugly naked truth of the monster all victors are underneath, the charm, the flirting, the insults…

She refuses to be cowed into silence, she refuses to be seduced and she refuses to let him have the last word.

* * *

She's feisty.

And hot.

And annoying.

And he decides after two days that he hates her.

Problem is, as Chaff points out chortling in his glass of whiskey, maybe he wants her a little too.

* * *

The city never agrees with him. He avoids sleep and gets wasted when he can't go on much longer without shutting his eyes. Trinket doesn't seem to be much of a great sleeper either. She spends a lot of time out partying or trying to rope him into helping her plan for their tributes late into the night.

She doesn't seem to understand her presence won't be a miraculous way to save the kids.

She acts as if he's simply incompetent and never had an escort gifted enough to bring Twelve to victory.

* * *

She's arrogant.

And naïve.

And absolutely too soft under the polished veneer she flashes the world.

* * *

When the kids die within five minutes, as he knew they would, he waits for her to shatter.

She doesn't.

For a moment, he thinks she's about to cry and he thinks he will laugh at her if she does, if only to keep his own bitterness at bay a little longer.

She doesn't cry although her eyes get impossibly shiny.

She bottles everything up, declares they will have more luck next year and that's the end of that.

* * *

He watches her lose herself in parties as he loses himself in whiskey, eagerly waiting for the moment the Games will finally be over and he will be allowed to board a train back to Twelve.

He still tries to get her to quit but she won't relent and she's entertaining somehow, so he stops trying.

* * *

He finds her asleep in an armchair in the penthouse one day, a forgotten fashion magazine on her knees, and it's such a contrast to her usual boisterous self that he flops down on the couch without a second thought. It's creepy to watch a stranger sleep but he does it anyway, envying her peaceful rest.

He doesn't know how it happens.

It's been two days without sleep for him, he thinks, and not enough alcohol. He doesn't pass out but he doesn't think he falls asleep either. He _drops_ rather.

He expects a nightmare and he finds something _else_.

It's different from anything he ever experienced.

He's dreaming, he knows he's dreaming but in the dream he is almost awake.

 _The Ferris wheel overlooks the Capitol and they're stuck at the very top. He's never been there before but he knows the whole city is spread at their feet. The cabin is transparent and it almost feels as if they're floating in space. He should feel fear but he doesn't. The feeling he gets instead is familiar, soothing._

 _The souldream has never been this vivid before and he reaches for her hand well before he turns his head to look at her. She's watching the city with sorrow and some confusion on her face but when she looks at him, a slow smile stretches her lips._

 _There is no surprise when he finally sees her features, no startle of disgust or rejection. There is no room for that here. This isn't the real world, this is a dream space, a well-known meeting ground that is_ theirs _. Their souls have known each other forever. It's just the first time their minds catch up._

 _Their palms slide against each other and she laces their fingers together._

 _"Haymitch…" she whispers and it is not even an acknowledgement, just a welcome._

 _Something slots into place within him and he knows without a doubt, given the chance, he would live in this moment for the rest of his life._

 _He is complete and it basks him in an overwhelming sensation of_ peace _. The guilt, the grief, the pain… It's all gone. Unimportant._

 _She's not wearing her wig and her make-up, she doesn't need her armor here._

 _He reaches out with his free hand to tuck her blonde hair back behind her ear._

 _"Effie…"_

He wakes up with a gasp and immediately meets startled blue eyes.

"Holy _shit_." he spits, watching her with growing horror. It's one thing to suspect his soulmate is a Capitol and quite another to have her right there in front him. "Holy _shit!_ Holy _fucking shit !"_

The peace he felt in the souldream is gone, only the implications remain because she is not just a random Capitol – that he may have _maybe_ learned to live with – she is _an escort._

"Nothing excuses vulgarity." she says in a shaky voice. "Haymitch…"

His name on her lips is too reminiscent of what just happened in the dream and he flees. It's not his proudest moment but he's in an opinion that if the fight is lost, retreat is the only sensible option.

* * *

He avoids her.

Awake or asleep.

* * *

When he finally gets back to Twelve, he does so hoping she will have the good sense to quit.

It's stupid of course.

He hasn't known her long but he already knows her enough to know she's not a quitter.

* * *

Either they never sleep at the same time or he's too drunk or she's doing something on her end because there is not a single souldream that year.

* * *

He barely acknowledges her at the Reaping, still caught up in an instinctive need to _flee_.

* * *

She's beautiful.

Like his arena.

And beauty means danger.

Beauty means _pain_.

* * *

She corners him in the bar car when the train is well on his way to the Capitol.

"We're not talking about it." he states before she can even open her mouth. He downs his glass of whiskey and nods at the Avox to refill it. Her hand covers it before the guy can lift the bottle. He glares at her but she's not deterred, she looks determined and every bit as stubborn as usual.

"Are we _talking_ though?" she asks. There's a veiled uncertainty under her cheerful voice.

He licks his lips and shrugs, snatching his glass away from under her hand. "Sweetheart, we don't talk, we _fight_."

It seems to be good enough for her because she nods and leaves him alone.

* * *

It becomes the new status quo.

* * *

They spend the season arguing about _everything_.

She's such the perfect Capitol poster child it drives him mad.

He doesn't understand how they can be joined at the soul when she's the _embodiment_ of everything he hates.

* * *

It doesn't take him long to figure out how she prevents eventual souldreams. Not sleeping seems to be her favorite option but if she needs to she pops sleeping pills that knock her out like candies.

It's a solution.

Not a good one, not a permanent one, but a solution.

And it works well enough.

* * *

They fight all the time and about everything.

He takes great joy in infuriating her and goes into impossible raging fits when she retaliates.

By the Sixty-third Hunger Games, Chaff can't bear to hear him rant about her any longer. At some point, he tells him to just _fuck_ her and be done with it. Haymitch claims he wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole.

* * *

He's lying.

* * *

She makes his blood boil and every time they argue he wants to push her against a wall and tear those ugly clothes off her.

But he hates who she is and what she stands for.

So he doesn't.

* * *

Sometime in the winter between the Sixty-third and the Sixty-fourth Hunger Games, one of them slips. He's watching the flames in the fireplace when he drifts off and he doesn't realize he is asleep until _he is standing in a crowded alley where faceless people are walking by._

 _It's the amusement park on the outskirt of the Capitol. He's never been there but he knows. The Ferris wheel towers over him from its strategic place in the middle of the complex. The night is bright with flashing lights and colorful beams like always in the city. There are colors everywhere, every stand and ride is painted in bright red or pink or purple or green…_

 _He guesses_ this _is the place he used to souldream about in his childhood but could never remember._

 _There are no sounds._

 _People talk and laugh and trains full of them rush by on roller coasters but it all happens in silence._

 _He keeps walking, moved by an instinct that goes deeper than anything he knows._

 _He finds her in front of the House of mirrors. She's watching the faceless children trying to find their way out of the maze of glass, her blond hair neatly pinned up in a practical bun, her red evening gown floating down in layers of delicate feathers._

 _The definition of alone in a crowd._

 _"It used to be so happy." she whispers when he stops next to her, his grey eyes automatically moving to follow the kids' progression. "The mirrors… It used to be fun. I didn't know you could get lost in the maze. I don't know which reflection to trust anymore. I look in the mirror and I am not sure of what is pretence and what is true." He's got nothing to answer to that so he just looks at her while she goes on, not even once pausing to turn to him. "It used to be so beautiful here, so happy… Why did it change?"_

 _She does look at him then and he glances around, tries to remember it from_ before _when he hadn't yet met her, when he had only carried remnants of the place with him. This used to be a place of comfort to him somehow. Colors and happiness – hers, he now realizes._

 _"Because you opened your eyes." he suggests. "You know it's not real."_

 _He doesn't mean the mirrors or the fair but somehow he thinks she doesn't either._

 _Her fingers tangle with his and he lets her._

 _She's lonely. He feels it in pangs. The whole dream screams it to him._

He wakes up like he fell asleep, without realizing it.

He stares at the flames for a long while after slipping out of the souldream.

* * *

Souldreams are like dreams on a lot of accounts. What makes sense in there don't always make sense outside of it.

* * *

Logic has no place in dreams.

* * *

Symbolism now…

* * *

He mostly thinks the whole thing is crap, something the Capitols invented because they're always bored, but the next time he's at the Hob he still sits at Sae's counter, orders something that he hopes is squirrel soup and not rat and he broods long enough that the old woman eventually whacks him on the back of the head. "What's your problem, boy?"

He's twenty-nine, he wants to say, hardly _a boy_ anymore.

"What do you know about souldreams?" he mumbles.

He doesn't know why he came to her with this, honestly. Maybe because she used to be a friend of his mother and she knows almost everyone in the District. Nobody would ever accuse her of being a scholar but truth is there's not a lot she doesn't know.

"What does anyone know about souldreams?" she snorts, eyeing him with rapt attention. "They happen. Why? You've got it in mind to go out and find your soulmate? Doesn't sound like you to go chase chimeras." He rolls his eyes and stirs his soup – that _is_ probably rat – with his crudely carved spoon. He feels her staring but doesn't elaborate. It's not the first time he ends up sitting at her corner of the Hob, mulling over something or another. True it might have been a good decade since the last time but it's not a first. After a couple of minutes, she crosses her arms on the counter and leans in, lowering her voice enough that no one will overhear them. "Might have known a bonded couple once. Long time ago, mind you. He died in the mines and she was so heartbroken she never quite got over it."

"Bonded?" he frowns.

"That's what they call it when two soulmates find one another." she shrugs. "'Cause the dreams change once you meet them. Or so they say. Couldn't tell you myself."

"Change how?" he insists.

Her eyes are a little too suspicious but he's known her a long time, he knows she won't pry much further than what he's willing to give.

"Shared dreams." she explains. "Shared dreams you remember after. They say it's an odd thing. A bit like sleepwalking. You're awake and asleep at the same time. _Aware_ but _dreaming_ at the same time _._ They say there's no cheating in bonded souldreams. Doesn't seem too appealing to me to be honest. They say the strongest the bond, the easier it gets. Don't quite know what that means."

He pays her and he leaves not long afterwards.

It doesn't tell him much more than he already suspected but his curiosity is picked now and he's not as careful as he used to be about avoiding her in his sleep. Nothing happens though so _she_ must have been.

* * *

It's plain to see she's embarrassed at the next Reaping but she focuses on the kids and she plays the part of the bubbly escort so well he feels his curiosity recede and his resentment burst forth.

* * *

They start fighting at every given opportunity again to the point it gets unbearable for everyone from the kids to the stylists, the prep teams and the other District teams. Even Caesar makes a couple of remarks during their joined interviews.

One night the argument reaches such a peak he pines her to the elevator wall. _That_ shuts her up. Her eyes dart from his own to his mouth and back again. They're both a lot more breathless than the verbal spar warranted.

He's already leaning in when the elevator chimes.

It's a good thing.

He tears himself away from her and storms out.

* * *

He wants to think it doesn't change things but it _does_. That tension was always there but now there is no denying it. Every time they fight it's _there_ unsaid and unacknowledged but _there_.

The way she stubbornly juts her chin in the air at the end of an argument drives him _mad_.

It's a turn on.

It shouldn't be but it is and everything is already complicated enough without the souldreams.

* * *

He finds her pacing in the living-room at three a.m. one night, in such a state of restlessness she looks ready to climb the walls.

He's been an addict for such a long time he sometimes forgets not everyone is.

He tells her to stop taking pills before she gets completely hooked on them.

He drinks more to compensate and makes sure to sleep when she's busy.

They keep on arguing.

They keep on leaving the elephant in the room undisturbed.

The balance is fragile but they manage not to tip it.

* * *

He has a bad night a few days after that year Victory Tour passed in Twelve.

He's been fighting sleep for too long and alcohol isn't cutting it. He hates being forced in Undersee's wife's presence just as much as the woman must hate his very sight. She's Maysilee's twin and while they're not exactly alike, they're similar enough that it brings everything back, coupled with guilt at the knowledge it would have been better for everyone involved if Maysilee had been the one to come back. He has anxiety attacks, flashbacks and he's _so sure_ her ghost is lurking in the dark corners of the house, waiting to jump on him and drag him to hell…

He's in a bad shape when he finally surrenders to unconsciousness and he's not surprised to find himself _running._

 _They're being chased. It doesn't matter who or what. They're back in the deadly beautiful arena and everything is a death sentence._

 _"Faster!" he urges her, pushing Maysilee's shoulder roughly because she's not quick enough and he's not going to get killed because she can't get a move on… He's desperate, terrified. He's sixteen and he doesn't want to die. He's thirty and he doesn't want to die. Even when he thinks he wants to, he doesn't. That's his greatest flaw. He's a survivor down to the core._

 _He needs to get out of here. He needs help. He needs the_ colors, _not the bright blinding ones of the arena but the soothing ones of his dreams. He needs…_

 _He feels the shift in the air but it doesn't register immediately. He knows though because suddenly Maysilee stops running despite all his curses and pleas and all of his tugging of her hand. He knows it's not Maysilee anymore but somehow it's even worse because_ she _should be kept safe_ at all costs _. She is precious,_ essential _._

 _"Oh." she says as if she just understood something very important. "I_ hate _this place."_

 _"Come on, sweetheart." he begs "They're going to catch up. They're going to… We need to run. We need to get out before…"_

 _"Haymitch." Effie murmurs and just like that everything stills._

 _The arena is gone, has been gone for some time. He thinks it's been gone since she appeared. They're in the Victors' Village now except it's even grimmer and more depressing than the real one. It's a dark place. Everything is dull, colorless. The sky is a sad shade of grey, the houses are a faded yellow-earth, the brown of the dirt is dimmed. The fountain stands a few feet behind them with its sinister broken statue of a headless hero parading for the masses and behind that the tall iron gates are locked with heavy chains and paddocks._

 _The panic is slow to recede and it's not helped by their surroundings, by what he knows is lurking in the shadows between the houses and in the yards with dead grass. The houses are tombs and the dead never rest in peace._

 _"We need to get out of here." he insists._

 _She reaches out and frames his face with her hands. There is no hesitation in her, it's easy. Instinctive._

 _"We're safe." she promises. "I've always hated it here but we're safe. This is a dream, Haymitch. Nothing but a dream. Nobody will hurt you."_

 _He knows this place from his own nightmares. She seems too familiar with it. "How?"_

 _"Souldreams." she answers, shaking her head. She lets her hands drop and hugs herself. She's wearing a blue dress today. A short thing that doesn't hide much. "It was alright until I was twelve. I suppose that would have made you sixteen. Then the dreams turned scary. I never remembered what it was. Every time I woke up I was terrified but all I could remember was…"_

 _"Grey." he supplies._

 _"Yes." she nods._

 _"Yours were colors." he confesses._

 _She smiles as if it's the best compliment he can give her. It's startling how bright she is compared to the apocalyptic world they're standing in. It's less frightening with her here, less dark, less… lonely. It's still a prison but it's a prison for two._

 _"I think this is your dream space." she declares. "Capitol Park is mine."_

 _"Dream space?" he asks. It's the most lucid he's been in a souldream, he thinks, but he's still confused._

 _"I've been doing researches." she admits. "I wanted to understand… There are separate dream spaces, yours and mine. One of us pulls the other in. There is supposed to be a shared dream space too but I do not think we experienced that yet."_

 _"Okay…" he says even though he's not sure he grasped it. He feels as if he should be scared or apprehensive or_ something _but he_ can't _. Because she's there and in their dreams it's_ easy _. It doesn't matter who she is. It doesn't matter that he hates her and that she loathes him. Being together is enough._

 _Something growls in the darkness and he steps closer to her, to protect and defend and also, perhaps, because she's so full of colors maybe she will scare the ghosts away._

 _"Stay with me." he begs and it's childish but he doesn't want to be alone to face the monsters or the memories._

 _"You are scared." she comments._

 _In the real world, he would have lied. Here, he just reaches out for her hand._

 _How can he not be scared when he knows exactly what is moving in the shadows? How can he not be scared when he knows the truth?_

 _They're not the monsters,_ he _is._

 _"No." she says firmly and he hopes she can't read his thoughts but at the same time knows she got that loud and clear through their bond or maybe because of the subtle shift in the dream. "Look at me." He does so reluctantly and she places her hand on his cheek. "You are not a monster." He shakes his head, ready to argue, but she steps closer, in his space, and brings her mouth against his. When she speaks, it's a growl right against his lips. "You are my soulmate."_

 _It's a claim._

 _He doesn't know how it works but he knows it's a claim. He knows that now that the words have been spoken out loud there would be no denying them again. He feels it click into place – the bond or whatever it is._

 _He doesn't know how to answer that so he kisses her._

 _Raw and deep and probably too violently not to be the monster she swears he's not._

He startles awake when a shutter bangs shut. A glance through the window tells him there's a snowstorm outside. A glance down tells him he's hard and throbbing. From a simple kiss in a _fucking_ dream.

He knows which emergency he wants to take care off first.

A few strokes do the trick and he bits down on his tongue not to call out her name as he spills on his own fingers.

There's no way this is happening.

There is no truce and there is no peace.

No matter what his soul wants in stupid dreams he can't let her in because he's known since he was fifteen that the girl in colors from his souldreams is danger. He's fallen in love with the colors then. He's a bit too scared he will fall again. He's a bit too scared _she_ will fall and end up a broken doll.

* * *

He doesn't mean to fall asleep but he's still not doing well and he still plunders into a nightmare.

This time he feels it.

 _His soul calls to hers._

 _He's standing on the cliff, knows Nya is not far behind with her axe and her punctured eye, knows he is about to die…_

 _And his soul calls to hers because he's scared and alone and tired and he needs her._

 _The Village is less frightening this time._

 _Barely._

 _He sits on the edge of the broken fountain and he waits, his eyes on the moving shadows between the houses. His knife is in his fist, the blade and his hand covered in thick dark blood._

 _"Haymitch."_

 _She comes out from between two yards, apparently unperturbed by the darkness. He closes his eyes in defeat when she steps near, leaning his forehead against her stomach. The soft purple fabric of her dress is soft under his skin. It is soft when he bundles it in his fists._

 _"I need you." he rasps out._

 _"I know." she whispers. "I need you too."_

 _He's_ yearning _for her in ways he doesn't quite understand._

 _She straddles his lap and he lets her even though he wouldn't allow any woman to do that in the real world._

 _She seeks his mouth and he gives in to her kiss eagerly. It turns hungry very fast. She rocks on him, sending shivers down his spine and he runs his hands all over her._

 _Need and want merge in one single thing._

 _He breaks the kiss long enough to look up at her. He doesn't ask, doesn't request or demand. There is no need for that because they are of one mind._

 _The dream shifts and he lies her down on the bed. He doesn't know where they are, the only thing that exists is the mattress under her back and the soft silky feel of the sheets._

 _There is no hesitation, none of the fumbling of a first time. It's as if they've been doing this since the dawn of times. He knows where to touch to make her scream._

 _It's rough._

 _And wild._

 _And amazing._

 _She almost sobs out in pleasure when she climaxes._

 _He mutters her name in her neck when it's his turn._

 _They share a sated look._

His pants are a mess.

Talk about wet dreams, he thinks, hauling himself up from the couch and kicking off the sweatpants. He heads to his bathroom and the cold shower waiting for him there.

* * *

He's not a great porn amateur.

He watches the occasional movie on TV and he enjoys skimming through the pages when he finds one of Effie's lingerie magazines in the penthouse but he's more into the _real_ thing.

He never was one for fantasy.

Which is why he's confused by how much he loves the dreams.

Erotic souldreams beat everything.

It happens and happens again and he suspects neither of them is actively trying to stop it.

He thinks it's a new addiction.

At the end of the day, he looks forward to it more than he does liquor.

* * *

 _She's arching her back when he comes to the souldream, already wrapped around him, already bouncing up and down in his lap, already so wet and perfect for him…_

 _He wraps his hand around her nape and tilts her head back, his mouth running down her throat, teeth scrapping at the tender skin…_

 _He's sitting with his back against the wooden headboard and she's straddling his thighs, her hands firmly gripping the wood to steady herself. She's fucking herself on him and it's so hot he almost comes on the spot._

 _His hands caress her, cup her breasts, her backside, urge her to go faster…_

 _It doesn't take long for them to reach complexion._

 _She slumps on him and he wraps his arms around her, soothingly petting her hair, allowing the cuddle like he would never have done with anyone in real life._

 _"It figures…" she chuckles, dropping kisses on his shoulder._

 _"What?" he asks, trailing his fingers down her spine._

 _"That our shared dream space would be a bed." she laughs._

 _He laughs too._

He's still laughing when he wakes up.

He glances down at his lap and sighs.

He supposes it means another shower.

* * *

He tells himself the fact he stopped avoiding the souldreams mean nothing.

* * *

It's a lie and he knows it.

* * *

The Sixty-fifth Hunger Games' reaping starts badly with her calling a twelve years old name and ends up even worse when the mother pushes past security to _beg_ Haymitch to bring her daughter back.

He locks himself in his room as fast as he can and drinks himself into a stupor.

* * *

They don't talk about the souldreams.

They don't talk about anything that aren't the tributes.

* * *

His eyes track her every time she moves, his fingers twitch when she walks past, her perfume makes his mouth water and he can't keep the images out of his head.

He thinks if the Games weren't so difficult that year, if _Finnick Odair_ wasn't such a serious contestant, he would have done something about it.

* * *

There's a reason he doesn't get involved with tributes more than strictly necessary. But the girl is twelve and terrified yet willing to listen and learn. She has something. Maybe not a victor's potential but _something_. She asks for his help and he finds he can't say no. So for the first time since his escort came on board, he _truly_ mentors.

She helps.

She's dedicated and efficient and provides insight on other teams and on sponsors. Her advices to the kids are surprisingly sound and she's relentless in her own coaching about appearances and public images.

They're actually a good team.

They argue all the time but they work well together.

He doesn't know why he's surprised. She's been doing his job for three years. Of course she picked up some things along the way.

* * *

The kids still die.

* * *

The boy is killed at the Cornucopia.

The girl lasts twenty-four hours.

* * *

It hurts more than Haymitch would have liked.

Effie _does_ cry this time. He hears her sobs behind the closed door of her bedroom. He places his hand on the handle and hesitates but in the end he walks away. This is real life, not a dream. He doesn't know how to comfort her and he isn't sure he wants to.

It's the likes of her who send kids in an arena to die.

* * *

The fighting starts again but it gets worse.

Again, people comment on it, either in worried not quite tactful questions over glasses of whiskey or in excited interrogations on TV shows sets.

They're famous for their bickering by now. It makes them interesting.

Effie is desperate that _this_ is the image they give of Twelve's team.

He shrugs because it could be worse.

They argue about it.

They argue about everything.

* * *

When Finnick Odair is crowned victor, Haymitch wants to throw up.

The boy is too handsome.

All the victors and some of the escorts are on edge, knowing what the frenzy about him will mean.

Effie is clueless and rubs him the wrong way. The fight starts like every other one but it soon turns ugly. He tells her everything about the prostitution, _accuses_ her really, and she slaps him. She takes him by surprise and it's the only reason she hits her target. When she lifts her hand again, he blocks her wrist and wraps his hand around her throat.

He doesn't squeeze but he _could_.

"Don't." he warns.

He pushes her away and walks out.

He tries to.

She shoves him from behind.

He faces her with an ugly sneer and half a mind to _hurt her_ because she's poking at the monster and the monster doesn't like to be poked. Her eyes are shiny with tears. She shoves him again with her hands flat on his chest. She tries to. He doesn't move.

She wants to hurt him, he understands, wants to claw at him and punish him for imparting a truth she didn't want to know.

He's the one who shoves her next.

Against the bay window.

Her breath catches in her throat when he tears the upper half of her dress off but she doesn't do anything to stop him, not even when he slips his hand down her corset.

It's different from the souldreams.

The feel of her skin is _real_ , she's warm, and if it was _amazing_ in the dreams, it's earth shattering in the real world.

They fuck like they fight.

They bite and scratch and exchange snide comments all the while.

It's dirty and violent and feral and every time he thinks they can't do worse, she surprises him with another trick.

* * *

They fuck like they fight.

Neither of them ever plays fair.

It's the best sex he's ever had.

And he knows he's just found another addiction.

* * *

The week between Finnick's crowning and his departure for Twelve is lost to a sex whirlwind.

They dream about it and then one of them joins the other one and they do it for real.

* * *

He thinks they're falling in lust.

* * *

He does nothing to stop it.

* * *

 _They've been having erotic souldreams for so long he's surprised to find himself back in Capitol Park, back in the Ferris wheel, at the top, in the transparent pod._

 _Effie's sitting cross-legged on the floor, her eyes on the city below. She's not wearing any fancy dress today. She's just wearing a light blue camisole and some frilly shorts he thinks she uses as pajamas._

Vulnerable _is the word that comes to mind._

 _She doesn't stir when he sits down next to her._

 _"What's wrong?" he asks._

 _It takes a long time for her to answer and when she does, she keeps her eyes on the Capitol, its flashy lights and its fancy buildings. "It's crumbling."_

 _He glances down but everything looks normal to him. "If only."_

 _She shakes her head. "To me it is. I don't know… I don't know anymore."_

Oh _, he thinks. He reaches for her hand, entwines their fingers and shrugs. "Yes, you do."_

 _Her blue eyes turn to him and they're full of tears. "I am scared."_

 _He wants to tell her not to be but he doesn't lie to her as a rule so he shrugs again. "Just be careful. Don't let them see. Be who they want you to be."_

 _A sad smile floats on her lips and then it's gone. "Business as usual then."_

He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling of his bedroom in his empty house and he wishes she wasn't so far away.

* * *

The dreams come and go.

He actually looks forward to them.

It makes time pass quicker and it makes the isolation in the Village less difficult to bear.

Sometimes he drags her in his nightmares without meaning to, sometimes she calls him to that Park. Her dream space isn't as colorful or happy as it used to be. He blames himself for it but knows that ultimately, it just means she's _finally_ seeing the truth about Panem.

The sex dreams are still his favorite. If only because it makes the _actual_ sex so much more satisfying when they reunite.

* * *

It goes on for years.

* * *

They never discuss it.

Outside of the dreams, their bond is left unacknowledged.

* * *

One day she reaps Primrose Everdeen.

And for the first time in a long time, Haymitch _hopes_.

* * *

He never falls asleep in her bed. It's not a thing they do.

It changes with Victory Tour.

He goes to bed with her and he sleeps with his arms around her regardless of if they had sex or not.

She doesn't comment and he doesn't either.

They're both scared. For them, for their kids, for _everything_. They don't need to talk about it because it reflects on their dream spaces. Capitol Park is empty nowadays, it's still colorful but it looks like a ghost town, the city around it looks more menacing than bright and lively. As for the Village, it's more threatening than usual, the sky is set in permanent night and nowhere is safe.

He likes falling asleep with her in his arms. He worries he will hurt her in his sleep sometimes because of a nightmare or a night terror but she scoffs at that and tells him she will sense it and catch him in his dream and since she probably will, he lets the matter drop.

The more they give to the souldreams, the less regular dreams and nightmares they have.

Falling asleep isn't as terrifying as it used to be. Not with her neatly wrapped around him and knowing he will find her back in his dreams.

* * *

 _He trails his fingers lightly down her spine, his grey eyes distractedly studying the room._

 _Their shared dream space used to be a bed and nothing more but it expanded in the last few years. It's a bedroom now and he sees it in every corner: the mix of them. A shelf full of books, discrete flower patterns on the curtains, a dressing table full of beauty products, a walk-in closet, a rocking chair in the corner… The walls are painted in an earthy shade he likes with colorful cheerful framed paintings brightening the room here and there._

 _There's a white door too. It appeared around the time Johanna won. It's always closed and he's been curious as to where it leads for years now but he lacks the courage of opening it. He's a bit too scared to know what they are both dreaming about._

 _"Haymitch?" she whispers and at the seriousness of her tone he knows she's going to ask something she can't in the real world because they're monitored and there are bugs everywhere. He wishes it was another sort of dreams. One where they would kiss and gasp. They were already cuddling when he came to, though, and it was peaceful. So peaceful. He wishes the real world was like that. "The Districts…"_

 _"Yes." he says before she can fully formulate her question. There is no point. He knows. The Districts are angry and on the verge of chaos. He knows she picked up on it._

 _"Are we safe?" she asks._

 _"You know we're not, sweetheart." he snorts. "The kids aren't cutting it. Or they're cutting it too well maybe. I don't know. But there's no going back now."_

 _"If there's a war…" she starts and he wraps his hand around her nape with enough strength that she stops talking._

 _"There's going to be a war, Effie." he states calmly. "Make sure to stay on the right side. Don't go and give them ideas about you not being a loyal citizen."_

 _"You won't be on the Capitol's side." she argues._

 _"No." he shrugs. "But I'm not sure we can win this. So you stay where you're safe."_

 _She's silent for a moment and he regrets there is no filter in there because given the choice he would have kept her in the dark. She's a good actress – hell, she's the best actress he's ever met – but she's been slipping lately, anti-Capitol and anti-Games comments escaping her pretty painted lips. He's scared it's already too late to keep her off Snow's radar._

 _"You are my soulmate." she says at last. "Where you go, I go. If time comes to choose a side, you know what mine will be."_

 _He knows she will pick him and the children over anything._

 _He knows._

 _It scares him._

He tightens his hold on her and buries his nose in her hair, breathing the fruity smell of her shampoo in.

He should push her away for her own safety. Leave her and make sure to never have a souldream again.

He can't.

Even if he tries, he knows the bond won't allow him his cowardice.

* * *

After Peeta leaves, he calls her.

There are bottles waiting for him, neatly lined on the kitchen's table. He will down them all while waiting for the girl to take her head out of her ass and show up.

But he needs to call her first.

She's sniffing when she picks up and her voice is muffled, cracked and full of pain.

It's what he's been scared about.

Where has she been when the Quell announcement came? At a party with friends? In the City Circle? Did she betray herself?

"Keep it together." he orders.

It falls on deaf ears.

 _"Can you… Can you go to sleep?"_ she begs and it's reckless and stupid and he prays to god nobody picks up on that odd request because he knows for sure the phones aren't safe.

"You're drunk, sweetheart." he tries to cover her blunder. "Go to bed."

She will take it to mean he will join her, he figures. He can't. Not tonight.

He downs as many bottles as he can instead.

He's pretty much wasted when Katniss shows up asking him to go to his death like it's a walk in the park.

Then it's the boy coming back and stealing his liquor, stealing _choices_ away from him, and bless Hazelle for being a good friend because she sneaks in enough booze every day that he can cut down slowly instead of hitting full force withdrawals.

* * *

Still, sleep is elusive and not something he manages for a few days. Not before they start training like Careers and it becomes very clear he will be screwed if he goes back to an arena.

The sky is already turning pinkish when he lies down on his bed and closes his eyes.

 _She's crying._

 _It's not supposed to happen because souldreams are always peaceful. There is no pain here. It's soothing. But it's so huge on her side that he feels it like a punch to his chest._

 _"Shhh… Princess, don't…" he whispers awkwardly, spooning her, wrapping himself around her to better comfort her. Their bed is cold,_ their room _is cold and not as welcoming and perfect as it used to be. There's a crack on the window. Some of her bottles are knocked on the dressing table. Half the books are missing from the shelf. Chaos. Their shared dream space is crumbling. "Effie…"_

 _He's talked to her on the phone a few times since the announcement but it's not the same. Out there they can lie and pretend and stay strong for each other. In here…_

 _"Effie, please." he begs and his own voice cracks._

 _"You can't die." she sobs. "You can't."_

 _He didn't tell her about the plan he and Katniss have in place but he didn't have to. She knows him too well. She knows he won't let the kid go back if he can help it. And he knows if she could, she would do the same for the girl._

 _He nuzzles her neck, presses a kiss under her ear, draws her even closer to his chest… "Come on, sweetheart… It's dangerous what you're doing… You can't…"_

 _"I don't care." she snaps. "If you die, I don't care what happens to me."_

 _He turns her around brutally and grips her chin in his hand, forces her to look straight at him._

 _"Don't say_ shit _like that." he growls. "I die, you go on. You protect the kids. You do your best 'cause I won't be there to save all your sorry asses. Get it?"_

 _She purses her lips and slowly wraps her fingers around his wrist, tugging his hand away from her face. "Language."_

 _"Effie." he insists._

 _She stares at him for a long time and then averts her eyes, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her free hand, her lips wobbling with the effort she makes to stop crying. "I will protect the children."_

 _"And yourself." he nudges her._

 _She kisses him. Hard. Deep._

 _He knows it's a decoy to avoid swearing something she has no intention to do but he gives in to it all the same._

 _Clothes fade away when he rolls on her, leaving only the delicious sensation of skin on skin._

 _It's slow._

 _Desperate._

 _Their foreheads are pressed together all the while, their hands entwined over her head on the pillow, he kisses her occasional tears away and she meets every thrust with her hips._

 _He feels sweat trickling down his back, pooling between their body... He licks the salty water from her collarbone._

 _"I can't lose you." she whispers and it sounds feverish and mad._

 _What happens to people who lose their soulmate, he wonders? Nothing good, his subconscious answers._

 _Bliss is encompassing but he clings to her, to the dream, because he doesn't want to wake up just yet. She clutches him right back, just as frightened of going back to the land of the awake, it seems._

 _He rests his weight on her because he knows she can take it and she will tell him if she's uncomfortable, he places his head on her chest and listens to her heartbeat._

 _He wonders if he will be able to dream in the arena this time._

 _He wonders if he will get a last glimpse of her._

 _His eyes fall on the white door._

 _"We should open it."_

 _His words startle himself but deep down he wants to know. He wants to know what their shared dream space looks like outside of the bedroom. He wants to know what else they could be if they were brave enough to live their dream._

 _It's too late now, of course. No time for a future or attempting to make happen whatever there is outside of this room._

 _"Yes." she agrees simply._

 _They roll out of bed and she slips her hand in his when they walk to the door still naked and not caring one bit._

 _Her hand closes on the handle – of course, it has to be her opening the door,_ of course _– and she looks at him in question, sensing his sudden hesitation. But he is_ sure _deep down and so he leans in to kiss her, to let her know…_

"It's noon." Katniss states as he splutters and wipes the water she just threw at him. "You're so lazy, Haymitch."

His bed is completely wet which is probably a good thing because it hides the unsavory evidence of the fact he had _happy_ dreams.

"Get out." he growls, pressing his hands against his eyes.

They were so close. _So close_.

"What's gotten into you?" the girl frowns. "I just…"

"Get _the fuck_ out of my house!" he shouts.

He doesn't mean to but he knows it's violent because she flinches and steps back.

She's gone before he can even try to salvage it.

He doesn't really care.

He flops back down on his wet bed and he breathes out slowly.

He can't shake the nausea away.

* * *

"Fifty-second Hunger Games. Alina Grave." Peeta announces, putting the tape on and Haymitch can't exactly swallow back his groan. Training like Careers is bad enough but watching Games every night is more than he can bear. He does it for the kids. So they're prepared and because he can give some advices and share some knowledge about their future opponents, but he hates it. He hates watching people he calls friends living their own personal nightmares.

"Do you know her well?" Peeta frowns.

Does he know Alina well? Enough to know she always used to smell like almond and her eyes stopped him in his tracks more than once. Enough to know he's made a fool of himself once or twice with her. Enough to call her one of his best friends once upon a time. She's got a hell of a temper but it's softened by her extraordinary kindness.

Does he know Alina well? What is he supposed to answer to that? _Yeah, sure, we lost our virginity to each other once. Fun times._

"We're around the same age." he shrugs instead. "She hasn't mentored in a while. She's got a husband and kids now. Two boys."

"Anything _useful_?" Katniss asks.

He grits his teeth at the cold detachment in her voice. Peeta winces but the girl doesn't get his not so discreet gestures for her to cut it. She doesn't understand how it affects Haymitch, watching those Games, talking about his _friends_ as if they were already enemies…

"Motherhood made her soft." he says. "She's got a sound brain so we should watch out but she's not much of a fighter anymore."

None of them are.

His grey eyes fall on the tapes scattered around the boy's living-room. Most of them are old and worn out. The Second Quarter Quell is still in the cardboard box Effie sent, the case faded and obviously having often been handled by impatient hands. He thinks most of the tapes in the collections are hers because only the ones from after the Sixty-second Hunger Games are brand new. When she started working as an escort. He doesn't pause to reflect on what it means.

He falls asleep midway through the interviews.

 _He's alone and something is different._

 _His heart is pounding in his chest and the impression of looming danger is too strong to be ignored._

 _He's in their room but she's not there and yet he knows this is a souldream._

 _It's too clear and vivid not to be._

 _The white door is open._

 _"Effie?" he tries but no one answers him._

 _He hesitates and then wanders outside. He's always expected a house. He has some ideas about how he would like their house to be. He may or may not have some rough sketches locked away in a drawer of the desk in his study – something to keep him busy during the long winter nights when liquor doesn't cut it. He's been pretty sure it would be a house._

 _It gives out on hell._

 _It's_ his _hell but he's not surprised it became theirs._

 _He hesitates two steps past the threshold. Everything is the same. The volcano in the distance, the woods, the surrounding beauty…_

 _Sometimes he can't picture his mother's face anymore or his brother's smile… He forgot. But his arena is always clear down to the silver veins on the carnivorous plants' leaves. It is seared on his eyelids._

 _And the instinctive terror it triggers in him is too much to be controlled._

 _He wants to wake up._

 _And then, of course, she screams._

 _And so he runs._

 _Without thinking, without second-guessing… He runs._

 _Shared dream space… Shared nightmare space…_

 _He ponders that a second before he reaches the clearing where he killed for the first time._

 _"Effie!" he shouts._

 _She's kneeling in the bright green grass, her dress torn apart, her wig askew, her make-up smudged… It's the first time she wears her fashion armor in their dreams and it is so clearly melting down he can help but shout again._

 _That's when the man towering over her turns his head toward him, his knife glinting in the warm sun._

 _Haymitch is not surprised._

 _Of course, he is not._

 _He doesn't know who is having a nightmare, her or him, but the monster in front of them is one he has been dealing with since he was sixteen._

 _"I'm sorry." Effie whispers again and again. "It's my fault. I sent you back. I sent you back. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Haymitch… Haymitch, I'm so sorry. I can't do this without you. I can't do it. I can't. Haymitch…"_

 _"Effie." he pleads but she doesn't hear him. He tries to wish them both away, to Capitol Park or to the Village because anywhere would be better than here but it doesn't work. He doesn't think she even_ feels _him and it's the first time that it happens, it's the first time the souldream fails and he can't reach her and it leaves him terrified._

 _"Haymitch…" she whispers._

 _And the monsters focuses back on her. The monster that lives locked deep down in his soul, the monster who wears his face, the monster who sometimes gets thirsty for blood and who whispers that killing isn't so bad, that they've done it before and can do it again, that it's an acceptable solution to problems…_

 _He knows what will happen the moment she reaches out for his double._

 _"No!" he screams as the monster lifts the knife. It slashes her throat open on the way down. "EFFIE!"_

He wakes up with a gasp, his throat raw and his hands clawing at the armrest of the chair he's sitting on. "Effie!"

The kids are calling his name, scrambling to put the Games on pause and warily standing out of reach, talking to him, trying to coax him out of the nightmare.

It takes five minutes before he can bring his breathing back under control.

He hauls himself out of the chair and stumbles twice in his hurry to reach Peeta's phone. He dials her number out of sheer memory and swears he can feel his heart tightening with every ring that goes unanswered.

"Pick up. Pick up." he mumbles, too aware the kids are watching him like he's gone completely mad. " _Pick up_ for _fuck_ 's sake, sweetheart _."_

"Haymitch, what…" Peeta asks.

 _"Yes?"_ she utters at the other end of the line and he breathes out a sigh of relief, placing his arm on the wall and resting his forehead on it.

"What the _fuck_ happened?" he spits out, angry now that he's sure she's alive. Which is stupid. Of course, she's alive. You can't die in dreams.

 _"I… I am not sure."_ she hesitates. " _I couldn't… I know you were there but I couldn't… I was trapped in my nightmare."_

He licks his lips and takes another deep breath but it does nothing to calm the tremors in his hands – in his _whole_ body really. He needs an entire bottle to wash the memory of the knife slicing her throat open out of his mind.

"Are you alright?" he asks because he needs to be _sure_.

She laughs and it's all bitter and broken. " _Are you?"_

Fair question. He hangs up without answering it.

Katniss is looking at him like he's definitely gone crazy.

Peeta just looks sad and Haymitch can't help but think the boy figured everything out.

With this little stunt on the phone, it will be a miracle if he's the only one.

* * *

The kids do not share dreams.

Eighty percents of Panem's population never find their soulmate.

Peeta is still crushed by this.

* * *

Souldreams turn into nightmares.

Hers or his or theirs.

He starts sleeping when he knows she's most likely awake.

He thinks she must be taking sleeping pills again.

It's better than watching the other die every night.

* * *

When she calls his name at the Square, he has a flashback of another time, of another escort and another hell.

It lasts a second but it's enough for Peeta to volunteer.

He tries to stop him.

He fails.

* * *

She kisses him as soon as the kids retreat to their rooms. She kisses him in the middle of the living room car and she doesn't even try to pretend it's something else than it is.

"I love you." she confesses into his neck.

It's not the words that startle him, it's the fact she speaks them so freely.

He doesn't reciprocate.

He kisses her.

He pretends he doesn't feel her disappointment.

He pretends he doesn't care if her feelings are hurt.

It's dangerous.

Too dangerous.

* * *

 _They're sitting on a bench watching the empty train of the huge red roller coaster that makes impossible loops come and go without passengers. It's on the tip of his tongue to suggest they climb in. Just because it's better than sitting there in silence._

 _It's been a while since their last souldream._

 _At least, it's not a nightmare._

 _He doesn't think it is._

 _"Why Capitol Park?" he asks after a while. He never asked before._

 _"My grandfather used to take me there for my birthday." she hums. "Mother disapproved naturally but he never listened to her. It used to be a happy place. Why the Village?"_

 _"Because it's my prison." he shrugs._

 _"I would share it." she offers._

 _She's not made for a secluded lonely life and she doesn't belong in any prison of any kind. She's made for amusement parks and laughter and happiness._

 _"I know." he acknowledges anyway._

 _Her blue eyes are piercing and a little too knowing. She rests her head on his shoulder and the sadness in her voice is almost too much for him to bear. "But you do not want me to."_

 _"In another life I would…" he sighs. "Now…"_

 _His sentence trails off._ Now _is too complicated._

 _The Quell is changing everything._

 _The Quell…_

 _"You still won't tell me what is going on?" she laments. "I could help."_

 _"You help by staying out of it." he instructs. "I want you safe."_

 _"Safe doesn't exist." she counters. "Not even in our dreams anymore."_

 _She stands up and walks away and he follows because he has nothing better to do. He buries his hands in his pockets and quickly falls in pace with her. It's habit after all this time to shorten his steps so she can keep up._

 _Eventually, she flicks her blond hair behind her shoulder with an annoyed jut of the chin. "Haymitch, do you…" She stops and shakes her head. "Never mind."_

 _He knows what she wants to ask though because he knows her too well and because there aren't many ways to hide so powerful emotions in there._

 _"You're my soulmate."_

 _It's the first time he says it._

 _It's not the words she wants to hear but it's all he has to give._

* * *

The tokens are a bad idea.

He warns her.

He tries to dissuade her.

She goes on anyway.

She adorns them all in gold and irremediably makes it clear where she stands.

* * *

He fights to have her brought to Thirteen with the second hovercraft.

Nobody is happy about it but he tells both Plutarch and Boggs to screw themselves.

Everyone has a list and there might only be one name on his but she's the most important.

* * *

Katniss shoots too soon.

* * *

He loses Peeta and Johanna.

* * *

It's not until he's in Thirteen that he learns he lost her too.

* * *

There is too much to do to sleep.

He doesn't think he could even if he wanted to.

Withdrawal hits him and they lock him away because it's not orderly enough for Coin's military District.

Hallucinations aren't dreams and they're certainly not _souldreams_.

They still don't know where Effie is when Katniss takes up the Mockingjay's mantle.

* * *

Finnick can't get through to Annie either.

They share looks over breakfast sometimes and pretend they're not mad with worry.

* * *

He dozes off during a briefing and the souldream creeps on him.

It's fleeting and hazy like it used to be before he met her.

Plutarch nudges his elbow before he can truly fall asleep.

He's angry about it but relieved at the same time.

At least now he knows she's alive.

* * *

Bombs drop on Thirteen and there is little else to do but sleep.

He sleeps a lot to everyone's puzzlement.

He has dreams and he has nightmares.

But she never meets him there.

* * *

They rescue the victors and the Capitol executes their people in retaliation.

He waits and waits for Effie to be dragged in next.

Even when the Capitol anthem blares out, he waits.

* * *

It's not that he's given up on her.

It's more than he knows Snow has a gift for hitting him where it hurts most, ripping his loved ones away from him and leaving his soul flayed. And now the Capitol has part of it within its grasp, the _good_ part too, and it makes him want to _slaughter_ , to let loose the monster.

He doesn't.

Because she wouldn't like it.

* * *

He's tinkering with Beetee's tools and annoying the man to death with his constant hovering when he drifts off.

 _Capitol Park is in ruins._

 _No people, no colors, no gravity defying rides…_

 _Rubbles._

 _Everywhere._

 _As far as the eye can see._

 _It's pitch black._

 _Dust rises in clouds with his every step but he keeps walking in this post apocalyptic world._

 _It takes him a long time to find her._

 _She's huddled against a broken twisted piece of metal that used to be a roller coaster's railway. She's naked, her hair is cropped short close to her skull, her shoulder looks oddly shaped and badly bruised, her eyes when she lifts them to him are hollow._

 _"Effie…" he breathes out. He drops to his knees, crawls to her under the weird metal fences she has chosen for herself._

 _"You left me." is the first thing that comes out of her mouth and it's so weak and pained he immediately shakes his head._

 _It's the truth though, isn't it?_

 _"It wasn't supposed to happen like that. They should have gotten you out. You should be with me." he explains. It sounds like excuses. It is. "Effie…" He reaches out for her but she flinches and recoils, huddling more against the metal structure that screeches and wobbles. He drops his hand. "Please, sweetheart, I…" She buries her face in her arms and sobs and he feels his heart break in his chest. "Where are you? I'll come and get you. Just tell me where you are."_

 _He doesn't know how he will make it happen but he will. He can steal a hovercraft or he can steal a car… Hell, he will walk all the way to the Capitol if it's what it takes._

 _"They will kill you." she murmurs. "They want you dead so badly."_

 _"I don't care." he replies. "Tell me…"_

 _"I still do." she objects. She rests her cheek on her arm and stares at him, looking heartbroken. "I think I am going to die and I am scared."_

 _"You're not going to die." he growls. "You hear me? You hold on. I'm coming. I_ swear _I'm coming."_

 _"That's what I told the others." she smiles sadly. "And you came. But you didn't save_ me _. I saw them pass in front of my cell. I heard Katniss' friend."_

 _He closes his eyes briefly. "We didn't know you were there…"_

 _"It doesn't matter now." She wipes her cheeks with her good hand. "I can feel it creeping in. Death. It is not a good feeling."_

 _"Don't." he snaps. "You're more stubborn than that. Fight. When you wake up, I want you to fight."_

 _Her chuckles are bitter. "Haymitch, I am not asleep."_

 _"This is a souldream…" he frowns. "You're…"_

 _"There is nothing to do_ but _dream there." she cuts him off. "It is small and dark and nobody ever talks to me. I do not exist anymore. I float. I drift. I am losing my mind." She laughs and it sounds like broken glass. "I want to die. I want it to stop. I don't even remember what light looks like."_

 _It chills him to the bones._

 _"Take my hand." he demands._

 _She eyes him with mistrust but eventually places her good hand in his._

 _He doesn't know how it all works._

 _He just knows they've gotten better at wrapping the souldreams around them._

 _He wills the dream to change with everything he has._

 _The white door is closed again but the bedroom is the same as ever._

 _He feels the tension leaving her body when she sits down on the bed and runs her hand on the woolen bedcover._

 _"I am touching dirt." she whispers. "But I am touching wool too. It is the most peculiar feeling."_

 _"Are you in pain?" he asks, wandering in the walk-in closet he has never been in before. He finds what he's looking for easily though. The place is_ full _of clothes she would enjoy. He selects a soft to the touch red nightgown._

 _"There, a little." she hums. "Here, not so much."_

 _"Then you focus on here." he orders, helping her in the nightgown. Her shoulder is dislocated. He presses his lips on the ugly bruise in a thousand kisses and he_ wishes _. When he draws back, the bruise is gone, the shape is normal and she is looking at him with a small frown. "This is_ our _place, sweetheart. There won't be any pain in our place. You're safe here. Nothing will get to you."_

 _She brushes her hand against his cheek. "A brand new little cell."_

 _"I'll come for you as soon as I can." he promises._

 _"Here or there?" she whispers._

 _"Both." he swears._

He straightens on the chair and stares at Beetee who stares back with lifted eyebrows.

"I want Effie Trinket found." he orders his friend. "Start hacking them."

* * *

They don't find her.

Finnick and Annie get married, Two falls, they prepare for invading the Capitol.

They don't find her.

* * *

 _"You were gone forever." she complains._

 _She's sitting next to the window, her cheek pressed against the cold panel of glass, watching outside. Haymitch can't remember ever glancing through the window so he can't guess at what she's looking at._

 _"Sorry, Princess." he sighs from his position on the bed. "There's a lot happening out there."_

 _She waves his excuse away and flashes him a smile. "Look what I learned to do." She outstretched her hand and an apple appears in it like it had always been there. She bits down on it immediately, some juice trails down the corner of her mouth. She wipes it with her thumb but keeps on munching on the apple. "I am_ starving _. But no matter how many I eat, it doesn't go away. They have not fed me in a long time. I think they forgot I am still alive. How are the children?"_

 _He tells her about Katniss and Peeta but she's distracted. She keeps looking through the window until he stands up and joins her._

 _The ocean._

 _As far as the eye can see._

 _There's a path leading to a beach below, it goes off from what looks like a backyard full of colorful flowers. There's a white swing seat, a small table and chairs…_

 _"I want to take a boat." she confesses._

 _He doesn't see any boat. Boats don't sound good to him anyway. Boats go elsewhere and elsewhere isn't_ good _._

 _"Don't." he forbids. "Stay where I can find you."_

 _She smiles at him before leaning against his chest, her arms tightly wrapped around his torso. "I told him you would say that."_

 _"Told who?" he frowns._

 _"My grandfather." she hums, nuzzling his neck. She's tiny without her heels, she barely reaches his chin._

 _"Your grandfather…" he repeats, at a loss. "Your grandfather's dead, sweetheart."_

 _"Yes. And you are thinking it is impossible but I am living on the edge between dreams and reality so I find I have to reevaluate what is impossible and what isn't." she argues, pressing a kiss on his jaw. "He comes and plays for me sometimes."_

 _"Play." He's lost. He can't decide if she's having hallucinations or if she's truly losing her mind back there._

 _"The violin." she clarifies. "Have I never told you my grandfather played the violin? He taught me. I forgot how well he used to play. It is so good to see him again truly. So good… He wants me to go with him. To the boat. He wants me to…"_

 _"No." he snaps, tightening his hold on her and burying his nose in her hair. "You don't go to any boat. You don't leave. You don't die. I'm coming for you."_

 _She's silent for a moment._

 _"I am afraid you will be too late." she confesses._

 _"I can't lose you." he insists. "Hang on. I'm_ fucking _coming even if I have to kill everyone on my way there."_

 _"Why?" she asks. "Why can't you lose me?"_

 _"You're my soulmate." he answers immediately._

 _"No." she shakes her head. "Why?"_

"Wake up." Plutarch shakes his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Haymitch, but it's time."

He blinks and rolls out of bed and goes with the Gamemaker to say his goodbyes to the Star Squad.

He almost tells Katniss that if she's going to do something stupid – and it's _Katniss_ she's probably going to do something stupid – she should go looking for Effie first thing.

He doesn't.

He doesn't need to put more dangerous ideas in that girl's head.

* * *

He fights to be allowed on the next wave going to the Capitol.

They don't let him leave Thirteen until the rebels are well into the city, the Star Squad is lost and Command is moving to the outskirts of the Capitol.

He can't split his attention between looking for secret prisons and looking for the kids.

* * *

He chooses the kids.

* * *

 _The white door is open and Effie is not in the bedroom._

 _There's no dread this time when he steps past the threshold. The corridor is painted white with some dark colored frieze at the top of the wall. There are several white doors but he doesn't push them open. He finds the stairs and gets to the ground floor. The house is a subtle mix of modern and ancient, a perfect mix of_ them _. It's bright and homey and he loves it._

 _The living-room looks more like a patio with three walls made out of glass. He continues through the bay windows and wanders in the backyard. The flowers smell sweet, some varieties reach his shoulders… It looks like an open conservatory. He's reminded of his arena briefly but he doesn't feel the claustrophobic feeling he expects._

 _Effie's lying on the white swing seat, in the middle of all the flowers, swaying gently in the sea breeze. She's wearing a pale blue summer dress and her hair is long and curly again. She looks like before._

 _"You left the room." he observes and he doesn't know if it's reproachful or not. He always thought they would explore the house together. Their shared dream space._

 _She turns her head to look at him and she looks sad. "I fell asleep."_

 _Three words that fill him with dread._

 _"Effie…" he begs._

 _"I like it here." she hums. "It is peaceful. I will stay here for a little while and then I will take a boat."_

 _He doesn't realize he moved until he is kneeling next to the swing seat, stopping its gently swaying with one hand, the other on her stomach. "You don't take a boat. I told you. You don't. I'm close now. I'm_ so _close, sweetheart…"_

 _"Oh, my darling…" she breathes out slowly. "I don't think the choice is mine anymore."_

He blinks and Command takes shape again around him. He's still standing next to the big table, right where he's been for the past twenty minutes.

He doesn't know what it means that he's having souldreams without being asleep. Does daydreaming count as dreaming? Or is it the bond acting up? Or is it because she's been living in their shared dream space for so long that it feels like an actual place at the back of his mind now? Or is it because she's dying and he….

He barely listens to what Plutarch and Beetee are discussing – something about hummingbirds he can't care less about – he grabs the arm of a passing soldier. "Get me the location of every Capitol prison you can find."

* * *

Capitol prisons are all beyond enemies lines.

By the time Katniss is spotted, he's ready to tear his hair off.

* * *

Then the silver parachutes fall from the sky.

Prim dies.

Katniss burns.

Beetee confesses.

* * *

 _Hummingbirds_.

 _He digs his fingers in the dirt where he's kneeling next to the swing seat and buries his face in her stomach, barely registers her fingers running through his hair and the gentle noises she makes to calm him._

 _So many kids dead._

 _So many._

 _He could have stopped this._

 _He could have…_

* * *

The list of the dead keeps growing with every passing minute.

Prim is the first confirmed, then Finnick, then the rest of the Squad, then… It keeps on coming. Names of victors who have been executed by one side or the other.

Dead friends.

Dead.

Dead.

 _Dead_.

* * *

He has entire squads looking for her all over the city.

When Coin will learn about this, he will be in for a hell of a lecture. For now Plutarch covers for him. Plutarch owes him. Plutarch is the one who brought the Hummingbird Operation to Coin.

* * *

Katniss still breathes.

He takes his victories where he can get them at this point.

She still breathes – in an incubator filled with an odd liquid and her flesh is melted and torn apart, yes, but it's still breathing and it's still better news than he expected.

* * *

Peeta is fine. Shaken up, still confused, but fine. In one piece.

Haymitch doesn't care if he risks getting his head torn away from his body, the first thing he does when he sees him is hug the boy close until the kid tells him he's going to smother him. Peeta hugs back though.

He asks about Katniss first and about Effie next.

All Haymitch can do is shake his head.

* * *

 _"Night is falling." she hums._

 _"No, it's not." he lies even though he can see the blue sky slowly turning dark._

 _They're sitting on the wooden steps that lead from their garden to the beach and he reaches for her hand, holds it tight in his. He kind of guesses what the night means. It's like the boats she can see and he can't. He doesn't like it._

 _"It will make for a lovely sunset." she objects, resting her head on his shoulder. "Sunsets are not sad, Haymitch. Do not be sad."_

 _He hates sunsets._

* * *

"Could you feel him?" he asks Annie as soon as she and Johanna arrive from Thirteen. "When you were not asleep, could you feel him?"

Jo makes a displeased face and tries to step between the two of them because she apparently self-appointed herself Cresta's bodyguard.

Annie looks devastated and empty but her eyes are steady when she meets his gaze.

"Like a buzz in the back of my mind." she confirms. "Just a breath away."

"And you could talk to him, right?" he insists. "Not just when you were asleep."

"When I spaced out…" She nods and her face wrinkles in sorrow. "It's gone now. Our island… I can't go back."

He rubs his eyes and runs his hand through his hair and doesn't know what else to do. Half the rebel army is raiding prisons. She's nowhere. He doesn't know what else to do.

"She's leaving me." he murmurs, low enough that Annie is the only one to hear.

She doesn't answer anything because there is nothing to answer.

She hugs him and he hugs back.

Two halves of other wholes.

* * *

 _"Are you scared?" he asks._

 _The water is licking at their bare feet. He's holding her hand tight because she has her sight on this damn boat and this time he_ can _see it. It's not too far away._

 _"Why would I be scared?" she smiles. "You are here with me."_

 _"I don't want you to go." he begs. "I can't…"_

 _Her smile falters and she cups his cheek, scratch her nail against the stubble that is a beard in the real world. "I love you. I will always love you. It was not easy, you and I, and we did not have_ everything _but we had_ something _and it was already wonderful."_

 _"Don't speak past tense." he grumbles. "You're not… You're not gone yet."_

 _"It's time now." she whispers. "You know it is."_

 _He shakes his head. "Just a little longer."_

* * *

Plutarch's hand clasps his shoulder with entirely too much enthusiasm. He blinks but can't quite tear himself from the souldream.

"We have her." the Gamemaker grins. "They're bringing her in."

* * *

 _"No." he hisses, wrapping his arms around her waist, holding her firmly in place. He doesn't care if he has to wrap himself around her like an octopus. She's not getting on that boat._

* * *

He's seen her in Capitol Park but he's grown used to what she looks like in the dreams. She's bruised and battered, her hair is short, her skin is dark with dirt, her shoulder is still dislocated and he can count each and every of her ribs before the doctors whisk her away.

* * *

 _"Haymitch, I don't feel well." she whimpers._

 _"I've got you." he promises against her neck. "I've got you."_

* * *

They pump her with drugs.

She flatlines twice.

He holds his breath the whole time until he can feel his heart pounding like a caged bird in his chest.

* * *

He only start breathing again when she does.

* * *

 _"You found me_." _she whispers in his shirt as they sit on the beach and watch the boat float away._

 _"Told you I would." he snorts. "Can't let my soulmate go like that."_

 _She curls up against his chest, her legs hooked over his. "You could just say you love me, you know."_

 _"Pretty sure I never said anything about that." he teases._

 _"You don't need to, I feel it." she frowns. "I am in pain, am I not?"_

 _"Would guess so, yeah. It's not pretty." he sighs regretfully._

 _"I think I will stay asleep a little while longer." she decides, tucking her head under his chin. "The pain is only fleeting here."_

* * *

He listens to the doctor listing everything that's wrong with her and only gets that she should recover in time.

The shoulder is the most concerning because it stayed dislocated for too long. It will take a lot of therapy to regain a normal range of movements.

He remains at her bedside when he's not at Katniss'.

Neither of them wakes up.

* * *

He finds the decanter in a room of the Mansion.

He never knew how to say no to whiskey and oblivion is a bit too tempting at the moment. It's only when he wakes up with a hangover ten hours later that he regrets.

* * *

Katniss opens her eyes one late afternoon and Haymitch holds her mother while she cries in sheer relief.

Nobody's there to hold him when Effie's eyes remain closed.

* * *

 _"Are you going to wake up soon?" he grumbles, kicking the sheets off his legs. "You're too_ fucking _stubborn for your own good. The nurses say you should be awake by now."_

 _She rolls on her stomach and his eyes retrace the glorious naked lines of her back and backside. She grins at him when she notices and props herself up to straddle him. He grabs her hips before she can get it into her mind to start something that will leave him embarrassed when he would wake up with a stain down his pants and an entire hospital to walk through._

 _"I'm serious." he snaps. "Wake up."_

 _She pouts but stills. "I do not want to."_

 _"I miss you." he admits, brushing her hair back._

 _"You have me right here." she argues. "In_ our _house. Everything is perfect here. Why leave? Everything hurts out there."_

 _"It's not the same, sweetheart." he argues. "You know it's not." He pushes himself in a sitting position and rests his forehead against hers. "I'm all for denial but that's extreme. None of this is real."_

 _"But it is always more than we will have out there." she scoffs._

 _"Out there, you will have me and the kids." he insists. "Beats being here on your own."_

 _"I have been here on my own for_ months _and I am not doing too bad for myself." she hisses._

 _"You're crazy." he accuses. "If you're really thinking about staying here forever, you're crazy."_

 _"Perhaps I_ am _." she sneers. "Have you ever thought of that? Perhaps_ I am _. Crazy and broken and… How ugly am I back there, Haymitch? Why wouldn't you like me better here where I can look as I wish?"_

 _"'Cause it's_ not _real." he scowls._

 _"It is real for us." she counters. "Where is the difference?"_

 _He shakes his head and frames her face in his hands, trying to make his point. "I'm not going to come here anymore."_

 _"Of course you are." she laughs. "Do not be silly."_

 _"Wake up, Effie." he commands. "If you want to see me again. Wake up."_

* * *

He sticks to his threat.

He's careful not to daydream into that shared souldream space. He drinks at night to avoid dreaming.

He visits her in her hospital room and he waits.

Sometimes he rants at her sleeping form.

She's stubborn, that always was her problem.

And she always needs to prove she can be more stubborn than he is which doesn't help.

* * *

It takes two weeks for her to open her eyes and the first thing he sees in there after her disorientation recedes is resentment.

She's in constant pain because of her shoulder.

She can't eat solid food because they starved her too long.

She's plagued with flashbacks and panic attacks and nightmares that leave her screaming herself raw.

She begs him to go back with her to the souldream but he refuses to yield, scared that would mean her giving up on trying out there.

She resents him and hates him for it but she soldiers through the first couple of weeks.

* * *

He almost throttles Coin when she declares Effie is going to be judged just like any other escort.

If it hadn't been for Plutarch deftly putting himself in the middle and saving his ass, he might have.

* * *

He tells her eventually, of course, what is the alternative? Letting her find out through a nurse or a doctor or _worse_ through TV?

"We should have kept dreaming." she scowls. "We were happy there."

He sighs and cups her cheek and draws her in for a forceful kiss she has refused him until now. She resists for a second and then gives in to it.

Souldreams are different from this.

Not less good but different.

"We can be happy _here_." he argues against her lips.

"Yes? Well, we will see how happy you are when your new President has me executed." she retorts.

He knows she's just trying to get a rise out of him but he can't help it, he storms out and slams the door.

* * *

He gets _massively_ drunk.

Obviously it's the moment Katniss chooses to come and talk about the bombs at the City Circle.

Obviously he kicks her out of his room.

* * *

He spends the whole day looking for the kid. She's always hiding in cupboards or in uncanny places nowadays and he's always the one who has to look for her since her mother can't be bothered.

He always hated hide and seek.

He doesn't find Katniss but he does find Coin and despite Plutarch's numerous warnings, he puts all his cards on the table. What he knows and what the rest of Panem _shouldn't_ know.

His silence isn't that expensive all things considered.

Effie's the _Mockingjay_ 's escort. It won't be _that_ hard to come up with a reason for an official pardon. Even if that means a few white lies.

They come up with an arrangement. He keeps Katniss in check for the rest of her life and Effie has to play escort one last time.

It's not ideal and he already knows he's going to have to do something about their new President before long but he accepts the deal.

"She's your soulmate, isn't she?" Coin snorts right as he is about to leave her office. She spits the word with loathing as if it's a curse or a shame to bear rather than a gift.

He's not surprised she figured it out. She's sharp and clever, she wouldn't have come to rule Thirteen otherwise.

"She's out of bounds." he warns.

She lifts a dismissive hand, a mocking smile on her lips. "Fate is ironic sometimes."

* * *

She should have kept that in mind.

* * *

The second Coin falls from that balcony, Haymitch breathes a little more easily.

* * *

They stay at Plutarch's for a while and, when it gets too much, they move to her thrashed apartment and start putting it back together. It's a herculean task and between that and Katniss' trial, they go to bed exhausted most nights.

* * *

Finding some sort of balance in this new life is slow going but they manage.

* * *

One morning he wakes up with his mouth full of blond hair, a full day ahead, and he realizes that for the first time in forever he is _happy_.

* * *

He stops fighting the souldreams.

* * *

 _"We could build it." he suggests, his eyes on the house. They're cuddling on the swing seat, swaying gently in the breeze, and he's evaluating. "You're good with architecture and you can sketch alright. We could ask Beetee and Peeta for help. We could build it."_

 _It will be expensive probably and she doesn't have much left. The new rebel government couldn't counter Coin's pardon but they seem intent on stealing all her possessions as compensation for her so called war crimes. He's never been a big spender though. Aside for the money he tried to share in the Hob, he never ever touched the complete amount of his victor's stipend. He has some money tucked away for a rainy day. Enough for a house probably. He could sell the one in Twelve too. He heard some people started going back to put the District back together._

 _Good for them._

 _He never wants to go back._

 _"It wouldn't be the same." she objects, pressing a kiss on his chest. "But we could build another one. Not a dream house but… A real one."_

 _She sounds hesitant, as if she's not sure how he's going to react to that suggestion even though he's the one who brought the subject up in the first place._

 _"Where do you want to go?" he asks. "Anywhere but the Capitol or Twelve. Or Thirteen. Got my share of that District."_

 _She traces mindless patterns on his side as she thinks. "We should wait for the children's input. I do not want to leave them behind."_

 _It's a wise plan so he nods his assent._

* * *

Aster Everdeen takes off two days after they managed to seal a deal. Without a guardian to take responsibility for her and bring her back to Twelve, the judge refuses to free Katniss.

Haymitch volunteers.

Quite literally.

Nobody gets what his _'I volunteer'_ means aside for Effie and she shakes her head at him for ten minutes.

"You are _not_ forfeiting your life." she berates him when they're out of the courthouse. "You are helping Katniss."

"Sure, I'm not." he snorts. "Just going back to prison, that's all."

She purses her lips and tilts her head and looks at him with unhidden sadness. "It won't be the same now, Haymitch."

* * *

It is the same.

* * *

He doesn't ask her to come with them.

He can't. Not when Peeta has to stay behind.

They don't discuss it.

They never discuss things when they're important.

* * *

There are phone calls and there are souldreams but it's not the same thing.

He doesn't take care of Katniss like he should, he knows. He lets Greasy Sae deal with her and on the rare days when he hauls himself over to her house, she doesn't seem to realize he's there at all. She lies on that couch and stares at the wall and her eyes are so lost and empty he would think she's in her own souldream if he didn't know better.

* * *

He tries.

He fails.

He's not what the girl needs.

They're too much alike.

* * *

Weeks turn into a month and Haymitch watches Twelve slowly being reborn from its ashes.

* * *

 _"Why are we here?" she frowns._

 _It's been some time since they ended up in one of their private dream space. He's not been to Capitol Park since the day he found her under the rubbles and he wonders what it looks like now._

 _The Village is the same as ever. Dark. Threatening._

 _"'Cause I'm in a bad mood." he grumbles, kicking a pebble before dropping on the edge of the fountain._

 _"All the more reasons to_ not _be here." she comments, sitting down next to him and immediately smoothing imaginary creases from her dress. "Have you been outside? Of the real Village, I mean. Have you been outside or are you staying locked up inside your house?"_

 _"None of your_ fucking _business, is it?" he snaps._

 _"You should try." she advises._

 _"Are_ you _trying? 'Cause last I heard you were playing hide and seek in your apartment." he taunts._

 _"I visit Peeta every day." she argues._

 _"And run home and lock the three bolts on the door and cower under your blankets." he scoffs. "You've got no room lecturing me."_

 _"Perhaps not." she admits. "Peeta is doing tremendously better."_

 _"That's good news at least." he smirks. "Means you're both coming home soon."_

 _She lowers her eyes._

 _When he reaches for her hand, the dream fades away._

* * *

Peeta comes back with spring.

When Haymitch picks him up at the train station, the boy is alone and looks sorry enough that he stops straining his neck to try and spot blond hair amidst the crowd on the platform.

* * *

" _I need to find myself_." she sighs on the phone.

"And you can't do that _here?_ " he scowls, kicking the foot of a chair that's on the way of his pacing.

" _Haymitch_ …" she begs. " _I need to try. And it is not like we can't see each other. All you have to do is daydream and…"_

"Yeah. Key word? _Daydream_." he cuts her off. "I want the real thing, Effie."

 _"That is all I can give you for now."_ she retorts. _"Take it or leave it."_

"Fine." he snarls.

He hangs up only for the pleasure of having the last word.

They both know he will take it anyway.

* * *

He watches the kids heal each other and he starts to think the soulmate thing is _bullshit_. He doesn't know when he changed his mind about that anyway, when he started to _care_. Maybe when he first got fascinated by her colors.

They fall into a routine.

Katniss hunts, Peeta bakes and he drinks and waits for the next train.

He tells the kids it's about liquor shipments but it's an obvious lie nobody but Katniss believes.

One day he finds a gaggle of goslings and he brings them home. He lets them roam free in the backyard at first and then he builds them a pen. He pretends he's raising them for meat but he sulks so hard the one time Katniss suggests they eat one of the now grown geese that neither of the kids ever brings it up again.

* * *

He's not always good at picking up the eggs before they hatch so the gaggle grows.

He enjoys the noise.

It disrupts the silence.

* * *

"What is it like? The souldreams?" he asks Peeta one night, after one too many glasses. He's not wasted yet but he's on his way there. The boy's on the other armchair, reading some book he borrowed from his shelf. "When you're not bonded… What is it like?"

Peeta closes the book and watches him with a frown. "Don't you remember?"

Haymitch shakes his head. "It's been more than a decade."

"It's… fuzzy." the kid shrugs. "Nothing special really. Mine aren't that clear anymore and I like it better like that."

He snorts. "Wise."

The boys hesitates for a second and then leans a little forward. "What are bonded dreams like?"

He closes his eyes and he feels it creep in, at the very edge of his mind. It's always _there_ nowadays. All he has to do is space out and he will be there and she will come because his soul is calling to hers.

"Like a weird phone call." he explains awkwardly. "A buzz at the back of the head. All the time."

"You can talk to her any time?" the boys exclaims, his eyebrows shooting up. "Like telepathy?"

"Doesn't work quite like that." he mutters and then waves his hand, signaling that conversation is now over. It's not telepathy and it's not quite a phone call.

They're better at controlling the dreams – _she_ is a master at it now – but it's _still_ dreaming. The sky could go down in the sea and he wouldn't even blink because the dream space has its own logic.

"You miss her, don't you?" Peeta winces.

He shrugs and, then, because he has never uttered those words aloud before and because he's drunk and feels daring, he says "She's my soulmate.".

He says it as if it explains everything.

Peeta nods as if it does.

* * *

 _Capitol Park doesn't look at all like it used to._

 _Rides aren't in the same place, the colors are a bit faded and there are no faceless crowd to populate the wide alleys. Yet the sky is a bright blue and the sun is shining which makes it a happy looking place. It's being rebuilt from scratch, he figures._

 _Haymitch explores for a while, letting his feet guide him to her._

 _She's wearing a neon pink dress, her low ponytail is tossed over one shoulder and she's smiling at him._

 _The first thing he does is kiss her because he_ fucking _misses her._

 _The second thing he does is frown at her. "You've been a stranger."_

 _The third thing he does is kiss her again._

 _He's not surprised when that kiss turns hungry and they end up stumbling against the cold metal of a rollercoaster, hands roaming and hearts beating fast._

 _It's been a while since they had sex, souldream or otherwise, and he doesn't even try to restrain himself. She's responsive and eager and there is no hesitation in her._

 _"I miss you…" she whispers in his ear._

 _"Didn't go anywhere." he counters. "I'm right_ fucking _here. You know where to find me."_

 _"Yes, I do." she grins. "And I am on my way."_

He wakes up with a start and rubs his eyes, wondering what she meant by that.

He gets his answer two hours later when someone knocks on the door.

* * *

 **T** H **E** E **N** D

* * *

 _Did you like it? What did you think? Let me know!_


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